On Wednesday, it was revealed that Americans who had trusted the guidance of Dr. Anthony Fauci to maintain a six-foot distance to prevent the spread of COVID-19 were informed that there was no scientific basis for this recommendation.
This information came to light after two days of closed-door interviews with the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.
A news release from the House Oversight Committee stated that Fauci acknowledged that the social distancing recommendation was not supported by any data and seemed to have been developed without a clear process.
GOP Rep. Brad Wenstrup, chairman of the panel, expressed concern that Fauci’s admission could lead to increased vaccine hesitancy in the future due to skepticism about his previous policies and mandates.
“He testified that the lab leak hypothesis — which was often suppressed — was, in fact, not a conspiracy theory,” Wenstrup said. The lab leak theory claims that the coronavirus was released from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, and not from natural sources, as Fauci initially claimed.
The release noted that the admission came “nearly four years after prompting the publication of the now infamous ‘Proximal Origin’ paper that attempted to vilify and disprove the lab leak hypothesis.”
The release also said Fauci, who denied trying to pressure the CIA on the lab-leak theory, “played semantics with the definition of a ‘lab-leak.’”
“Dr. Fauci’s transcribed interview revealed systemic failures in our public health system and shed light on serious procedural concerns with our public health authority. It is clear that dissenting opinions were often not considered or suppressed completely,” Wenstrup said.
On Fauci’s second day of testimony, he revealed that he had recommended colleges to implement vaccine mandates for students.
A release summarizing the first day of Fauci’s testimony quoted Wenstrup as saying that Fauci “signed off on all domestic and foreign research grants without reviewing the proposals and admitted that he was unaware if NIAID conducted oversight of the laboratories they fund.”
Fauci, who is now retired, was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“It is also concerning that the face of our nation’s response to the world’s worst public health crisis ‘does not recall’ key details about COVID-19 origins and pandemic-era policies,” Wenstrup said. The release said Fauci claimed more than 100 times that he could not recall events about which he was questioned.
According to the release, Fauci has once again denied any involvement by the National Institutes of Health in funding “gain-of-function research in Wuhan,” where COVID-19 originated.
The release further states that Fauci has been evasive in his definition of gain-of-function, attempting to avoid acknowledging any potentially dangerous research funded by NIH in China.
During the interview with Fauci, Republican Rep. Michael Cloud from Texas, who is a member of the panel, expressed astonishment at Fauci’s ability to either conveniently forget past events or find ways to evade responsibility for his influence.
This information was reported by the New York Post.
“They wash their hands of any sort of responsibility, saying, ‘Oh, those decisions were made by school districts.’ But the school districts know, if you don’t follow the guidance that’s coming out of the federal government, you open yourselves up to lawsuits,” Cloud said.
“He says he’s still not convinced that there was learning loss — that in his view, that’s still really open for discussion. I think [if] you ask any parent, they’ll tell you it was a major hit on their child’s development,” he said.
Wenstrup said Fauci “admitted that the mandate could increase vaccine hesitancy,” according to the Washington Examiner.
“I can’t get into his mind, but I think he felt it was the right thing to do because he thought it would save lives, but he basically was saying the lesson learned [was it] didn’t get into the psyche of America,” Wenstrup said.
“We have a problem in our country, and now people don’t want to get any vaccines,” Wenstrup said.
“The mRNA vaccine is different. The messaging was never really good, and I don’t think America ever felt like they were being educated. They were getting indoctrinated,” he said.
